Not About Buying and Selling

The Internet’s best underground music shops, plus interviews with Dominic Fernow, Marcia Bassett, and Pietro Riparbelli.

In the latest installment of "The Out Door", we look at the best underground internet music shops, and we interview a trio of experimental music vets: Dominic Fernow of Prurient and Cold Cave, among many other projects; Marcia Bassett (Zaimph, Double Leopards); and Pietro Riparbelli, who creates field recordings in some of Italy's most famous cathedrals as K11.

I: Not About Buying and Selling

Mimaroglu offices shot by owner Keith Fullerton Whitman

Three weeks after its release, Wavves' second album, King of the Beach, had reportedly sold less than 3,000 copies. That seems pretty low for something talked about so much, but it had only been available digitally, and as Matthew Perpetua suggests, the album will likely sell as much over time as recent efforts by acts of comparable acclaim. Still, if it doesn't, no one will be shocked-- with sales continuing to slide and record stores closing rapidly, it would be more surprising if Wavves records sold well .

As we've noted previously in this column, struggling sales and the various causes-- illegal downloading being the most obvious-- affect the underground as much as bigger indie labels. Last week, one of the best stores specializing in subterranean sounds, Twisted Village in Cambridge, Mass., closed after 14 years. Owners Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggar-- veterans of the groups Crystallized Movements, Magic Hour, and Major Stars-- called the idea of signing a new five-year lease "suicide." But Rogers also noted plans to redesign the Twisted Village mail-order web site, which has been part of their business for a while. As he told The Boston Phoenix, "I'm trying not to see it as a good or bad thing, it's just a thing."

There's another interesting quote in that piece, from Damon Krukowski, the former Galaxie 500 drummer who was Rogers' bandmate in Magic Hour. "These stores are not about buying and selling," he said. "That's why they can't last, and why we can't do without them." A bit dramatic, but it's undeniable that as stores continue to fall, there are intangible losses more important than money. The biggest may be the unique experience small shops offer. For underground aficionados, specialty stores are like benign drug dealers-- you can trust them to know your fix, and to satisfy it a lot quicker than combing through a big store or traipsing through one-note blogs.

Luckily, the underground is in a better position to preserve that one-to-one experience online. The average pop fan might frequent the iTunes store and even use the "Genius" function, but if you asked them who was behind it all, not only would they not know, they likely wouldn't care. Whereas underground music hounds prefer sites with idiosyncratic, archeological visions. These operations are less sellers than curators, constantly seeking records that might disappear without them.

Such mail-order operations have been around for decades. In the 1980s and 90s, I got a lot of my records from mail-order-only outlets like Ajax, Blackjack, and RRR, whose paper catalogues featured entertaining descriptions of music I couldn't have found otherwise. One of today's biggest underground distributors, Forced Exposure, grew out of a simple mail-order list in the back of a magazine of the same name. But the web has made it easier for these shops to flourish, and for customers to take advantage without losing the person-to-person experience. For those new to such scavenging, here's a quick guide to our favorite mail-order sites. (If you're looking to start big, we recommend Forced Exposure, Revolver/Midheaven, and Thrill Jockey). There are many more where these came from, so don't consider this list definitive-- and let us know what we're missing.

Still going strong as a physical store in San Francisco's Mission District, Aquarius has done internet mail-order for a long time, and their website and email updates offer reams of prose more thoughtful and incisive than what you'll find on most blogs. (Just last week, a Razen/Sheldon Siegel split LP limited to 300 copies inspired over 1,000 words of sharp description). Aquarius' musical scope is wider than most sites listed here (comparable to the similarly fine Other Music in New York City), but their record-hungry staff delves deep, with an especially keen eye toward subterranean metal, obscure psych, and other international rarities.

Fusetron's website is as bare-bones as it gets, offering simple listings of stock with descriptions cut and pasted from label announcements. But click around its A-to-Z catalogue and you'll find a lot of smarts behind the selection of noise, improv, drone, and avant-rock. This isn't some warehouse for every noise CD-R on the planet. Chris Freeman started Fusetron as a label in Minnesota, putting out excellent LPs by the likes of Crank Sturgeon, Ascension, and (after moving to Brooklyn) Sightings, Gang Gang Dance, and Excepter. That ear for outward exploration is evident in every title he stocks.

Record descriptions on Volcanic Tongue's website rival the intensity and volume of those found at Aquarius, but they're all written by one man. That man just happens to be one of the most prolific writers in underground music, David Keenan, and he puts as much energy into his updates as his prose for The Wire. His selection tends to be in the range of that magazine's coverage, though Keenan has more feel for American noise and chillwave (or "hypnagogic," as he has coined it) than most. His "Tip of the Tongue" recommendations are always entertaining, as are the site's contributor columns-- missives from Wolf Eyes' John Olson, Skullflower's Matthew Bower, and, most recently, Siltbreeze's Tom Lax, explaining the mysterious origins of the Dead C.'s Clyma Est Mort LP.

This mail-order site has the simplicity of Fusetron, but specializes in the overlapping folk/psych world typified by the lineups at Terrastock festivals. The site itself terms it "drone, psychedelic, New Zealand free noise, and Kosmische music," and it also includes an in-house label that's produced some of the most vital releases of the past two decades, including double-LP reissues of early Sun City Girls cassettes and the By the Fruits You Shall Know the Roots compilation featuring Jack Rose, Six Organs of Admittance, and MV & EE.

When Keith Fullerton Whitman is not busy making thoughtful drones for Kranky and other labels, he and Geoff Mullen are ensconced in a mill building in Cambridge, Mass., filling orders from both individual customers and stores around the globe. Years ago, Whitman worked for Forced Exposure, writing fascinating record descriptions as Hrvatski (later a name he used for his music). His knack for great music and entertaining prose continues at Mimaroglu (check out the site's FAQ, which includes a list of peace-offerings that could get you through the Mimaroglu door if you show up unannounced). Mimaroglu is also unique in the amount of sound samples it offers-- just hit the big play button next to a given release and continue reading as you listen.

Free jazz and improv are a world of their own when it comes to mail-order, with the all-time champ being legendary upstate New York warehouse Cadence (grab a copy of their magazine sometime to grasp the mind-bending scope of what they carry, but have a magnifying glass handy for the tiny print). Of the smaller jazz mail-order outlets, we recommend Squidco and Downtown Music Gallery, both of which are run by people who know the ins and outs of jazz and wouldn't miss a vital new release if their life depended on it (which, in a way, it does).

Similar to Aquarius, England's Boomkat offers a breadth of experimental music, detailed descriptions, and, like Other Music, a healthy section of digital downloads for sale. Current bestsellers tend toward the spacier, more electronic edge of the underground-- terms like dubstep and ambient pop up a lot-- but all kinds of mainstream-dodging music is covered here. And, perhaps most importantly, the site now accepts PayPal.

The original pioneer in noise peddling remains the best source for all kinds of noise-- and noise only. The purist aesthetic of head man RRRon Lessard (aka "Emil Beaulieau: America's Greatest Living Noise Artist") is still firmly intact, and anyone interested in the No Fun fest, Japanese extremes, and abstract underground art should bookmark RRR permanently. Who knows-- the label's legendary 1990's Pure series might still be kicking around in the catalogue if you search hard enough.

Once you're gotten the bug, here are some other sites ready to occupy your time and money:Carbon (specializing in curated compilations and series),Chrome Peeler (noise and extreme metal experts), Hanson (run by Wolf Eye Aaron Dilloway),Metamkine(if you can read French), Second Layer (one of London's most diverse shops),Sound 323(European experimental connoisseurs),Tomentosa(focused on super-small labels),Weird Forest(underground drone with sound samples),Weirdo(the Massachusetts heir apparent to Twisted Village), and Zum(the best in West Coast avant garde). Finally, a fond farewell to Time-Lag, who recently announced they will be shutting down on August 15-- still time enough to stock up on all the MV & EE CD-Rs your postal deliverer can carry! (Correction: It turns out Time-Lag is shuttering its physical store in Maine, but not its mail-order service, so don't put your checkbook away yet.)

Next:> An interview with electronic noise artist and member of Cold Cave and Prurient, Dominick Fernow